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You get out of your parent's car, your notepad in hand as you got ready to have to deal with the hell that is school. You couldn't blame the bullies at school much, not many of them meet mute people in their lifetimes. You tried to use ASL but barely anyone knew it so you decided to just use a notepad and pen instead, you figured it was the main reason some kids made rude comments about it.
Your family had just moved to this town mid-school year, you hadn't minded it much since your family moved a lot but you were going to miss one of the friends you made in the town you were just in.
You walked into the office and wrote something down quickly, asking where the counselor's office is and showing it to someone at the front desk.
"What? can't talk?" She laughed after she spoke, her laughter dying down when she realized that you weren't joking. She quickly points you towards the office and goes back to work, filling out papers and such. You knock on the door before the counselor opens it, smiling at you when she sees your face.
"Hey, kiddo! What's up?" She says joyfully only to be met with you scribbling on your notepad, she frowned slightly before you showed her what you wrote. 'I need my schedule' written in big letters on the yellow paper. "Your schedule? Why won't you talk?" confusion rang in the counselor's voice. You pulled your notepad back to you and wrote again, this time saying that you're mute and don't talk, she nodded in understanding and invited you into her office. "What's your name?" She begrudgingly said as you sat down in one of the chairs.
You wrote it down and showed her, she typed the name into her computer and found your schedule, printing it out for you. As the page printed she turned her chair to be facing yours.
"You know, there's another mute student here, Dwayne Hoover. I think you two would get along, I'll call him down to give you a tour of the school," She turned back to her desk, not even noticing you shaking your head 'no' so she wouldn't call him down. She did some typing on her computer before pressing some numbers into the phone and telling whoever it was on the other end to send Dwayne Hoover down.
You waited awkwardly in the office while you waited for the supposed other mute to show up, you nervously twiddled with your thumbs when you heard a curt knock on the counselor's door.
"Oh, Dwayne! How good to see you again, this is a new student to the school that also happens to be mute. I was hoping you could take him on a tour of the school?" She said, standing up and grabbing papers she needed to deliver to another room. Dwayne just nodded and motioned for you to come towards him.
You stood up and followed him as he led you out of the counselor's office and down the hall. He made a writing motion with his hand, as if he was asking if he could talk to you through writing. You pulled out your notepad and wrote a small 'i'm m/n' written near the top. You handed the notepad to Dwayne and he read it, using his own pen to write 'dwayne' and hand the notepad back to you.
You two kept switching your notepad back and forth as you walked, ending up sitting down on a bench in the hall as you two communicated. He wrote down his house number and then wrote that you could call if you ever wanted to hang out, this turned into you two making plans to meet up after school so he could show you the music that he likes.
By the time you two were wrapping up your conversation the bell rang, so Dwayne walked you to your next class and went on his way. It was the third period when you two got done talking so you had to sit through the rest of the day waiting for it to be time to see Dwayne again.
At lunch, you saw him and sat next to him though you didn't talk as much. All you two wrote to each other was Dwayne asking if you wanted some of the apple slices he somehow got, you declined but told him you appreciated the offer. Lunch ended quickly after that, Dwayne walked you to your next class again and then left to his. You could barely focus in the rest of your classes thinking about what it would be like to hang out with Dwayne.
As the classes passed and the day got closer to 3:00 pm (15:00), you got more and more excited. When the bell finally rang, you rushed to the front of the school. Dwayne wrote that at the end of the day he would go to the front and look for you, he walked home from school every day so he didn't have to worry about if one of his parents would want to drive you to their house or not.
Just as Dwayne said he would be, he was in the front looking over the crowd of other kids to see you, he quickly found you and ran up to you, waving and motioning you to follow him just as he did the morning of that day.
You got the hint and started following him as you both walked to his house, you didn't write anything to him as you figured he'd still only want to focus on walking home instead of talking to you. It was a short walk, a little over half a mile. He frowned when he got to his house, embarrassed to introduce his family to you if they happened to notice that you two were there.
He made another notepad motion with his hands and you got the hint, pulling out your notepad and pen and handing it to him. He wrote for a bit and gave the notepad and pen back to you, standing and waiting for you to read it.
The note read, 'my family is embarrassing, you don't have to interact with them if you don't want to'
You understood where he was coming from but still wanted to meet them, you wrote your response before handing it back to Dwayne to read.
'that's ok, i get how embarrassing families go'. Dwayne handed it back to you and just shook his head with a small smile, leading you inside his house. At first, no one did anything, the house felt empty. Until you heard a door open and saw a little girl run out. She looked around 9 or 10, with big glasses. She squealed loudly when she saw you, then ran up to you and hugged your legs.
Her voice was going a hundred miles per hour, talking way too fast for you to even get anything she was saying. Eventually, she slowed down and was able to get out what she had been trying to say the entire time.
"Hi! I'm Olive, I'm Dwayne's little sister, are you Dwayne's friend? Can you stay the night?" Though her voice was calmed down, it certainly wasn't slowed very much. You nervously looked at Dwayne and he just motioned towards what you assumed to be his room, you nodded and smiled at his little sister. You waved a small bit before awkwardly getting her off your legs and getting into Dwayne's room. In his room he had his own note pad so he didn't have to get you to let him use yours, he got to his notepad and wrote something before showing it to you.
'sorry Olive is so hyper, I warned you about my family,' is what the note said, you just smiled a 'that's ok, i don't mind,' you wrote back. Dwayne went over to his collection of CDs and pulled a couple out, his favorites, before putting one of them into the CD player next to his bed. He wrote something on his notepad again before handing it to you, 'you can sit where ever, i don't mind' you nodded and handed it back.
Unsure of where to put your stuff, you took your shoes off and put them next to the door along with your backpack. You sat down on the edge of Dwayne's bed, next to where Dwayne sat down when you were taking off your shoes, and just listened to the music. You pulled out your notepad and wrote 'you have a good taste in music', handing it to him to read. He looked at you and smiled as he handed it back, writing down 'thanks' and a smiley face next to it on his own note pad.